I’m not a writer or a poet, I’m just stubborn.

I’ve been hesitant to post after viewing other blogs on this site, I really don’t think I’m worthy of expressing myself here as most sites I have viewed are by writers and poets of which I am neither. I am just a stubborn middle aged mum who dreams of being able to entertain, enlighten or amuse someone else with nothing more than the written word.

Support to help me achieve this dream is thin on the ground so I pretty much keep it to myself, I’m know my dream is safe here, and try my best to delude myself that it could still happen. This was easier to believe while doing my university study but only because of the feedback that I greedily enjoyed; however earning a degree changed my life in an unexpected way.

This could be why I do not feel among the number of professional people who use this site. While working towards my dream I earned a little respect but it was the straw that broke the relationship donkey’s back and my children now have to deal with two homes and a very bitter father. I try not to look at this as all my fault; he was always bitter, I just always took the brunt of it and protected the kids from him.

The degree was in journalism and something I wanted to do when I was in school but my family encouraged me to leave at year 10 as, back in the eighties, university was for the rich and we lived in government housing and were a long way off being part of that exclusive group. My plan when I turned 40 was to gain qualifications so I could earn more money to support my own family. Yes you guessed it, he didn’t have any input in family finances.

All was good until I started doing well at it, gained employment in my chosen field and then advanced quickly in the organisation. That was when the violence began and the threats and abuse escalated. Somehow doing well wasn’t such a good idea after all.

What pushed me on at that time wasn’t so much that I thought I was doing well in my career change, it was more the fact I was being reassured I wasn’t a bad person and I was, in fact, clever and could make the right decisions. Unless you have been in this situation this could be hard to understand but in brief I had spent half of my 40 years with a person who told me the way I felt was wrong and who belittled me on a daily basis. I had to “think like a man” and just accept that if I was asleep when he came to bed and he wanted sex, well he was going to get it and it didn’t matter where he stuck it. He still believes it wasn’t rape because we were married.

Okay I didn’t mean to get in your face with that but hindsight lets me see how this, and all the other forms of abuse he subjected me to, all went towards my very low self esteem and how I rebuilt it and myself trying to make the dream of my youth come true. I gained confidence in myself so as it all imploded when he tied to hurt the kids to hurt me I didn’t take it and made a stand. He never will forgive me for that, especially as twenty years of withheld fear, hurt and anger erupted and I became a protective mother bear and fought for the safety of my kids. I wasn’t violent but I was scared and as mad as hell, no body hurts my kids and they certainly weren’t going to learn that this is what fathers do as he had learnt from his dad. I had to keep that fight up for almost two years.

I knew life would get worse before it would get better and it did. My boys and I laugh regularly now however and I try to do things with them as much as possible. I’m lucky I’ve always been the provider of the household as I still have the family home, and a rather large mortgage… again. But most importantly we are getting by, we aren’t rich even by eighties standards but the boys and I are fine. While I refocussed my attention on getting us all through a very hard five years or so I once again put my dream on the back burner so I can be there for my kids.

What’s this all got to do with me being not worthy to be among the others on this site? Writing has been brewing nicely at the back of the stove for while now but I’m still learning the trade in this, the early years of my new life. I’m stumbling as well as falling and I’m still trying my hardest to believe in a childhood dream. Most of all I’m stubborn and I’ve only just ran back onto the field and will see how close I get to the goal posts this time.